Question NW2719 to the Minister of Employment and Labour
15 September 2023 - NW2719
Le Goff, Mr T to ask the Minister of Employment and Labour
(1) What total number of the (a) Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and (b) COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) claims that were lodged currently (i) in the process of being audited and (ii) are awaiting auditing; (2) what (a) is the total number and (b) are the full details of the backlog of claims lodged by employers for the COVID-19 TERS Relief Scheme initiated in 2020 remain unprocessed? NW3110E
Reply:
(1) (a) 1 646 966 UI Act claims applications were lodged from the 1st of April 2023 to date; and
(b) 138 337 COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) claims applications were lodged from the 1st of April 2023 to date.
(i) 10 644 COVIDTERS claims were allocated to the audit firms and 4 384 were audited so far; and
(ii) 6 260 COVIDTERS claims are still to be audited;
(2) (a) 161 COVID-19 TERS Relief Scheme were processed (from 2020), declined and unpaid due to the following reasons:
2 (b) The applications where previously processed and declined due to various validation reasons. The applicable response errors were communicated (automatically) with employers to rectify the relevant applications so that the system can re-adjudicate (again) so that employees’ benefits can be approved and paid-out. It should be noted that ALL the application within different iterations were processed and currently UIF is re-processing any updated/ corrected employer applications. Out of the total applications received for the period above, the outlined below provides the breakdown of incorrect employer application errors:
- 22 are not paid due to invalid ID numbers;
- 30 are not paid due to unverified foreign nationals
- 45 are not paid due to Employees not declared.